Behind The Betting Lines Nov 8 2003

I was flipping through the channels late last night, on the verge of falling asleep in my chair, when I came across one of the most underrated “sports vs. nuclear war-themed movies” of all time. Of course, I am speaking of “Amazing Grace and Chuck,” staring NBA Hall of Famer Alex English. Movie buffs and Nugget fans alike understand the bittersweet emotion that comes with accidentally stumbling across this movie in the wee hours of the morning. First, you are overcome with joy realizing that you are about to witness one the most inconceivable nuclear war/little league/basketball protest movies of all time, but the feeling is fleeting as you soon realize you will have to stay up until 6:30 in the morning to do so.

While watching this film, which is not quite “The Fish that Save Pittsburgh” (but then again Alex Enlgish was never quite Dr.J), some very important social questions were raised. 1) What ever happened to James Bond III? 2) Weren’t Denver Nuggets fans upset that Hollywood took their greatest player, in his prime, and put him in a Boston Celtic uniform? 3) Did the casting agent who put Gregory Peck alongside Alex English and Jamie Lee Curtis every work again? 4) If the movie was set in the 1950’s and dealt with the Korean War would they have cast Dolph Schayes in the role of Amazing Grace Smith? 5) If the U.S. Military Acadamies had better football programs would we really need nuclear weapons?

While many of the these questions will remain unanswered during my lifetime, we got a firsthand look at the inequities of military academy football as we needed both Army and Navy in time-honored matchups. In one of the day’s biggest decisions, we needed Army getting twenty-eight at Air Force. Many people forget that Air Force is a military academy because they fly planes and have a good football program, but their 24-12-1 record against Army made them a legitimate favorite at home and odds on favorite to capture their seventh consecutive Commander in Chief’s Trophy, awarded to the winner of the season series between the miliary academies. Army could only manage a field goal, and we could only manage a push.

In the second featured military academy showcase, Navy took on Notre Dame for the 40th time since 1963. The meeting also marked the 40th consecutive loss for Navy at the hands of the Fighting Irish as a last second score propelled Notre Dame to victory. As the game-ending field goal crossed the goalpost and the Navy Midshipmen wept, linesman Tony Spinner proclaimed, “There is nothing more disturbing than grown men in uniforms holding hands and crying.” While truer words have never been spoken, Navy was able to cover the nine point spread, delivering us a minor victory.

The rest of the early afternoon games proved to be even more profitable as we took advantage of the public’s desire to take favorites across the board. West Virginia, Northwestern, Wake Forest and Tennessee won outright and Wisconsin covered, giving us a clean sweep on the day’s first big decisions.

The late afternoon games were almost as fruitful as Ole Miss, Kent State and Colorado gave us sizeable wins; however, the victories were tempered as we suffered two major losses as Purdue and Iowa State took care of intra-conference foes.

The late games proved to be disastrous as victories by Texas and Pitt cost us two big decisions, but a Washington cover helped curb our losses. While these late decisions hurt the bottom line, our overall winnings were welcome considering the handle was down 25% from last week.

We would have to wait until tomorrow to see how the public would react to two consecutive losing Saturday’s. But one question we we would not have to wait until tomorrow to answer is “Has anyone ever seen former major leaguer Kirby Pucket and current boxing trainer Buddy McGirt in the same room?” Because if you saw the Roy Jones Jr. vs. Antoio Tarver fight, you would know the answer is no.